The Genealogist's Internet

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

The first thing you notice about Peter Christian’s second, much
expanded, edition of his popular genealogist’s Internet guide is that
Canada is an “overseas country.” The guide is clearly written for an
English and Irish audience, so Canadian genealogists looking for
information on non-British ancestors or for Canadian information will be
disappointed with the lack of coverage.

That said, the book is full of useful information. There are 19
chapters covering all of the usual genealogical subjects and sources,
and some of the more unusual ones, such as deciphering handwriting and
the historical value of money. However, this is not a “how to research
your family tree” book; rather, it is about the Internet resources
related to those various subjects: starting points, civil registrations,
census, photographs, geography, etc. Both subscription and free sites
are covered. Christian acknowledges that because of the volatility of
the Internet, some of the information will already be out of date and
some sites already moved or gone. To deal with this problem, he
maintains an up-to-date website for the book including all the current
links listed in the text.

While there are an amazing number of resources listed, Christian does
not try to address all of the possible sites. Instead, he often cites
several of the best resources and then refers back to strong
genealogical gateways such as Cyndi’s List.

This book is a “must have” for libraries supporting genealogical
researchers. Many genealogists will also want to have a personal copy.